


Warehouse 69

by seriousfic



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe - Porn, F/F, F/M, Multi, Threesome - F/F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-26 23:26:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1706408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seriousfic/pseuds/seriousfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Myka and Pete are transported to a porn parody version of the Warehouse. It’s not as much fun for Pete as you’d think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Car trips were often awkward between Pete and Myka. Pete broke what Myka considered an unwritten rule about how many burritos a federal agent should eat, while Myka didn’t travel anywhere without her Margaret Atwood books-on-tape. Still, they were never more awkward than after the two had been on a grand total of two and a half dates.

 

“Do you realize where he took me?” Myka, in the passenger seat, was saying into her Farnsworth. “On our third date? Our _third date_?”

 

“Lots of women enjoy that sort of thing!” Pete said defensively.

 

“You’ve known me for five years, Pete, when did I strike you as a woman who enjoys ‘that sort of thing’?”

 

“I don’t know, I thought you liked to try new things!”

 

“A new thing is like a, a class on cave-painting or going scuba-diving with seals. _Not_ a monster truck rally.”

 

“It’s good old-fashioned American fun, Myka!”

 

“Maybe I’m just not that American, because I don’t see anything fun about the criminal waste of our dwindling petroleum…”

 

“ _I don’t see anything fun about nah nah nah,”_ Pete mimicked.

 

“Now he’s mimicking me!” Myka complained into the Farnsworth.

 

“That’s fascinating,” Steve said in black and white. “Really. But why are you telling me this? Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I have nothing better to do than hear gossip about your love lives.”

 

“Because it’s your fault I went on a date with him! I was all emotional and vulnerable over the Warehouse closing, Pete was having a mid-life crisis—“

 

“I’m not middle-aged—“

 

“— _you_ told him he was in love with me…”

 

“I didn’t expect you to take me seriously!” Steve protested. “Okay, I kinda did. Straight people are hilarious.”

 

“We are not!” Pete protested.

 

“Anyway, can we please stop blaming me for everything? I think some of the blame should go on the Round Table, showing memories at random. It didn’t even give Pete a defining moment. We probably should’ve known it was broken when there was that business with Claudia and the musical number…”

 

“Don’t blame a table!” Myka jeered. “It’s tacky!”

 

“I don’t know, I thought that table was pretty nice looking.”

 

“What do you know about interior decoration?” Pete demanded. “You’re gay. What are you, a stereotype?”

 

Static momentarily crowded the screen as Artie jerked it from Steve’s grasp. “Can I remind everyone that the Farnsworths are meant for official Warehouse business, _not_ jawing about Pete taking Myka to a rodeo.”

 

“Hey, it was a demolition derby,” Pete corrected. “She’s a classy lady. And we’re totally focused on the ol’ SBT.”

 

“Then you’ll remember your assignment?”

 

“Yeah. Buncha people disappearing for a few days in Oregon, they come back, they’re outta their minds—running to the nearest store and tearing into the porno rags until the police show up.”

 

“Very weird,” Myka added.

 

“Especially since they have porn on computers now. I hear there’s even stuff about, like, Seven of Nine getting it on with Cap’n Janeway.”

 

“Not that you’d know,” Myka added.

 

“Nah, feels weird reading about those two. Since they were on Voyager, the worst Star Trek TV show ever.”

 

“The Farnsworths are also not for complaining about Star Trek!” Artie broke in. “You have the entire internet for that. Now keep your eyes on the road!”

 

The Farnsworth went blank. Pete settled in to focus on the long, empty road.

 

“Just so you know, I’m not taking the full blame for the implosion of our love affair.”

 

“Please don’t call it a love affair,” Myka sighed.

 

“You were never that into me. And we both know why.”

 

“Your haircut.”

 

“No! Because you’re not over HG.”

 

Myka leaned in to fiddle with the radio. “Hey, I bet we get NPR out here.”

 

“Don’t use NPR to run away from your feelings, Mykes. You’re better than that!”

 

***

 

The first disappearance had been Keith Koogan. His house was still outlined by police tape, which Pete and Myka breezed through. It was a good-looking house in a neighborhood of good-looking houses. However, Myka doubted that the other houses on Boundary Street had the same decorator. “Holy crap, this is—“

 

“Awesome!” Pete interrupted.

 

“If your definition of awesome is a sex shop—of course it is.”

 

Pete high-stepped around to a row of posters. “Sex shop? A bunch of golden showers and facials and silicone implants? No, no, Myka, this is classy vintage stuff! Russ Meyer films, old Playboys, not a DVD in sight!”

 

“Can we just spray some goo around? I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened in here.”

 

Over the next two hours they gave everything a coating of neutralizer goo, but no Artifact responded. Myka, exhausted, sat on the stairs and hoped Koogan hadn’t had a stair fetish. She went over the case on her smartphone.

 

“Hey, Mykes, you think he’d mind if I borrowed one of these nudie playing card decks? We’re probably going to save him from a fate worse than death, so—“

 

Myka looked up. “Like a souvenir… Pete, what if the Artifact was here, but someone took it? The next victim was a first-responder who searched the house looking for Koogan. But then the third victim was a garbageman…”

 

Pete dropped the cards. “We need to talk to the cop’s girlfriend.”

 

***

 

“Yeah, I threw his porn out. He disappears on me, no phone, no e-mail, he’s lucky I didn’t throw out his Truffaut films too!”

 

***

 

Myka drove. “Okay, so whatever the Artifact is, the garbageman finds it, takes it home—you think it’s still there?”

 

“He’s the last victim. Makes sense.”

 

***

 

The garbageman’s place was surprisingly clean. The garbageman’s roommate was not. “Yeah, Carl wasn’t a dumpster-diver or anything, but if he saw something valuable, he took it to eBay. Everything he ain’t sold yet’s in the other bathroom. Can doesn’t work there anyway.” He leered at Myka. “How ‘bout I let your friend look through it while I get you a drink?”

 

“How about I help him clean out the shower so you can use it? A lot?”

 

***

 

The bathroom was piled high with signs you might be a 90s kid. Milton-Bradley games, Power Ranger toys, Sega Genesis cartridges. More potential Artifacts than Stephen King’s junk drawer.

 

“For the record,” Myka said, spraying around dismally, “I am completely over HG.”

 

“Really? Because have you seen her new girlfriend? She looks like—“

 

“I know what she looks like!”

 

“Just sayin’, if anything could convince _moi_ to have a sex change operation…” Pete broke off to pick up a dog-eared magazine that was more crinkle than paper. “Hey, check it out, Penthouse before they invented the Brazilian. I think my uncle had this issue. Bought it by accident when he was getting bodybuilding magazines. Man, for a fat guy, he was a real fitness nut.”

 

“You know, I’ve spent five years of my life expecting you to feel shame?”

 

“Listen to this.” Pete held the magazine at arm’s length. “’Greetings, esteemed appreciator of the female form’—that’s us—‘in addition to the fine content you are used to Penthouse providing, we are now also opening up a forum within our pages for your own sexual adventures and sensual explorations.’”

 

Myka took a look at him. “Do you have a mustache? It seems like you should have a mustache right now.”

 

“Myka, this is the first Penthouse forum!”

 

“Clearly a seminal event.”

 

“Oh, ooh, look at this! ‘Dear Penthouse Forum, thank you for finally providing a space for the connoisseurs of the feminine species to swap war stories—‘”

 

“This must be what getting married in Vegas feels like…”

 

“’I humbly submit my own story, and that of Lil Abner’—think that’s his penis.”

 

“Oh dear God.”

 

“’I never thought this would happen to me, but—‘“

 

Myka snatched the magazine away from him. “If you want to talk about sex that’s clearly fictitious, there’s this new thing called tumblr?”

 

“A straight man on tumblr? And you call me crazy.”

 

***

 

The spray-goo turned up nothing and they were out of leads. They interviewed the victims, getting nothing out of them, searched their houses, found nothing, and brainstormed over Chinese. Nothing. Checking the scrolling ticker on their Farnsworth revealed that Artie had gotten another ping on the other side of the country. They agreed to shelve the case for now and swing by the Warehouse for a night’s sleep and some debrief/briefing.

 

It sucked, but not all cases ended in bags and tags. Not everything was an Artifact, after all. Could’ve been some lost mail from Eureka, or an Alpha who’d spent the night at a motel. Claudia would keep an eye on it, see if the case developed any. For now, it was a long, bitter drive back to the Warehouse, with days wasted on a frustrating assignment.

 

“Why would you even say something like that?” Myka asked, head lolled against the car window.

 

“You’re gonna have to narrow it down some, Mykes. Since I’m me.”

 

“About me not being over HG?”

 

Pete shut off the radio. Nothing good was playing anyway. “Well, c’mon—it’s pretty obvious. First there was that thing with Nate; if you’d come onto her any harder, you’d’ve been jumping out of a birthday cake.”

 

Myka winced, coming to stare at him through her sunglasses. He irked a little.

 

“I mean, not that I have anything against birthday cakes—“

 

“Go on,” Myka commanded.

 

Pete cleared his throat, realizing slightly belatedly that he was swimming in shark waters. “Okay, then she breaks up with Nate, so you’d think the first thing she’d do would be, I don’t know, whatever mating call lesbians have. But instead, she starts working with the Warehouse again as a consultant and yet she’s all buddy-buddy with this Giselle woman? That’s cold. Just speaking as a guy, that is _cold._ She could’ve at least asked you out for coffee, gone on a cruise with you, seen if Groupon had any specials on couples’ therapy—“

 

“She asked,” Myka interrupted.

 

Pete blinked, his mind so blank that he nearly drifted into the other lane before pulling the wheel to the side. Myka didn’t notice.

 

“Wait—hold up— _una momento, por favor—_ you’re telling me Helena Godiva Wells, love of your life, literature-nerd-in-chief, like, _the woman you would wish for if you could wish for the perfect woman…_ I’d wish for Denise Richards circa Wild Things, by the way… _she_ asked you out? Why are we not celebrating your gay Canada marriage right now?”

 

“Cancer,” Myka answered simply.

 

“Geez… Myka, I’m sorry—“

 

“I wanted—more than anything—for her to be there with me. I didn’t dream of being cancer-free; I dreamed of feeling her hand in mine, or waking up and seeing her in that damned empty chair they put by the bed. But… if I didn’t make it… and it looked like I wouldn’t… what would that do to her? It’d break her, Pete. If I let her back in only to drag her down with me. She’s worked so hard to have a life that’s, that’s _safe_ and I wasn’t safe. I was quicksand. Then—I got better, and she was with Giselle.”

 

“Have you… thought of telling her that? How do you know she’s happy with G? How do you know she’s not staring at the phone, praying that you’ll call—“

 

“Pete, I have asked myself that a million times. But if it’s not cancer, it’ll just be something else. You said it yourself. The Warehouse leaves everyone dead, evil, or crazy. I’m okay with that. But I don’t want that for HG. It’d be too hard for her.”

 

“You’re sure she’s the one it’d be hard for?”

 

Myka looked at the car radio. “I think All Things Considered is on. Do you mind?”

 

Pete dutifully turned the radio on and tuned the dial as Myka leaned back in her chair.

 

***

 

“Does this place seem different to you?” Myka asked inside the Warehouse, as they passed the bombs.

 

“Well, Claudia isn’t playing her Rihanna music so loud that the ventriloquist dummy on Aisle 444 complains about it. That’s new.” Pete ducked the low-hanging pipe and came out into the office, decidedly empty. He took the opportunity to sit down in Artie’s chair and relax.

 

“Where is everybody?” Myka asked, going to the telescope on the catwalk outside.

 

“Don’t,” Pete called. “Don’t jinx it. I’ve been cooped up in a fabulously affordable Toyota Prius for the last two days. I don’t wanna do Die Hard in a Warehouse or whatever kooky adventure could be going on. I want fifteen minutes to put my feet up and—“ He put his feet up. “Oh… my back. My back feels like I learned to do yoga. Don’t tell anyone, but if somebody were to try to blow up the world, I would let ‘em. Not worth leaving this spot.”

 

Myka gave up on the telescope. “Tell you what. I’ll look around, and if I find Hans Gruber, I’ll bring you some pizza bites as apology for making you run around in a wifebeater and shoot people.”

 

“I’ll keep my shoes on,” Pete replied, pointing at himself and back to Myka repeatedly in the unspoken language of ‘we are making references to the same movie and I find that awesome.’

 

Myka went down the stairs into the many rooms built into the superstructure of the Warehouse, calling for the others and periodically trying them on the Farnsworth. It was in Subbasement Gamma-2 that she stopped recognizing the décor. The room as she’d once known it was an old-fashioned secretarial pool that’d been abandoned until Steve had needed a place for meditation. Now, the floor seemed to have a lot more statues lining the walls—naked men and women in the classical style, but without the boyish proportions the Greeks had favored. These were, to turn a phrase, anatomically corrected.

 

“Okay, I dated Pete, _very funny,_ ” Myka called to the co-workers she knew were pranking her. “But if you think I let him get on any bases in two and a half dates—the man pitched a no-hitter! Steve, tell them I’m telling the truth!”

 

Silence. Myka was sure they were around somewhere. She hurried around, checking the doors, poking her head into hallways, until she saw an office door with the stenciled glass lit up from the inside. “A-ha!” Myka cried, flinging open the door.

 

Then she screamed.

 

***

 

To his credit, Pete didn’t once think of the pizza bites Myka had promised him as he took the stairs two at a time, bursting into Subbasement Gamma-2 with his Tesla drawn, finding Myka with her back pressed to a door like she was holding an axe murderer at bay.

 

“What? What is it?” Pete asked, wondering if it’d be too much of a pose to draw his Glock as well, get a little Chow Yun-Fat thing going for whoever’d messed with the BFF.

 

“Artie and Claudia are having sex.”

 

Pete lowered his Tesla. Now he was glad he hadn’t gone full Woo. “Real funny, Mykes. Ya got me.”

 

“They are in there going full-on…” Myka’s head bobbed as she sought to convey the proper words. Like reading the Necronomicon, it didn’t come easy. “He’s… and she’s… it’s like I’m watching Blackfish again, only this orca has a penis!”

 

“Here’s where, if I were pulling this joke like the universe intended, _you_ would tell me that orcas do have penises. A-duh.” Pete yanked open the door. And closed it. “No.”

 

“Noooo!” Myka agreed.

 

“It’s like someone made a porno out of Kung-Fu Panda! You can’t even think about what’s happening, you just wanna know why! I need to call my sponsor. I haven’t been this close to drinking since Edgar Wright got fired from Ant-Man.”

 

***

 

There wasn’t much to do after seeing something like that except share-binge a tub of Rocky Road in the break room. After thinking about it became somewhat non-toxic, they quickly agreed that it was an Artifact and that they’d have to wipe Artie and Claudia’s memories as soon as the Artifact was dealt with, time travel not being an option.

 

It was then that Artie emerged from prior Lovecraftian horror, dressed now as he usually was. Myka hid the microfiche viewer she was looking up memory artifacts on. Pete hid the ice cream.

 

“Finally, you’re back. Huge ping in South America, huge, coinciding with the discovery of an ancient Incan statue head…

 

“Hey, boss? Artie?” Pete called gently. “Have you, uh… did you bump anything? On the shelves?” He played it off with a laugh. “You bump something, you old rascal? Huh?”

 

“Or smell fudge?” Myka asked. “Because I… misplaced some brownies I baked earlier and I’d love if you could tell me where to find them.”

 

“No, no bumping, no fudge. I’ve been with Claudia all night.”

 

Pete and Myka blanched at each other.

 

Pete suddenly snapped his fingers. “Oh! Oh, I get it! You were just working on some wacky Warehouse mojo, but it looked to us like you were—“ He turned to Myka, shaking his head. “They weren’t actually…”

 

“No, no Warehouse mojo. Just us fucking. But Steve has been in the gooery, so don’t worry about anything getting out of hand.”

 

“He said phreaking!” Pete cried desperately. “Phreaking like—in the eighties. War Games.”

 

“Hey guys,” Claudia said, breezing in.

 

Pete and Myka reacted appropriately.

 

“Pants!”

 

“Where are your pants?”

 

“Why aren’t you wearing pants, God!”

 

“Or a skirt!”

 

Claudia sat down, prompting further consternation at the thought of her bare butt on unfathomably old leather chair. “Dudes, just going bottomless. I know it’s been a while since I shaved, but c’mon, guys like a little tickle. Little feather duster.” She winked at Myka. “Girls too.”

 

“Alright, what—“ Pete circled around so a console was blocking his view of Claudia’s suddenly very mentionable unmentionables. “ _What_ is going on here? What kind of skanky Artifact did you two whammy yourselves with, because we are taking it out like _now._ ”

 

Seeing what he’s done, Myka rushed to stand beside him. “Yeah!”

 

“Artifact? Why would there be an Artifact?” Artie demanded, becoming impatient. “Claudia and I have been exploring the sensual limitations of our bodies—“

 

“Oh God, it’s worse when he doesn’t use the F-word.”

 

“—since she came to the Warehouse,” Artie concluded humorlessly.

 

“What? No!”

 

“No, no, _no!_ ” Myka stressed. “You’re like her father! Claudia, you’re like the daughter he never had! We all thought you had this sweet, platonic, familial relationship and now it’s all about sex?”

 

“Gross!” Pete emphasized.

 

“Well, sometimes I call him daddy,” Claudia grinned.

 

“Eww!”

 

“So eww!”

 

“Clearly, this is not something the people we’ve known for five years would ever do!” Pete argued. “There’s gotta be some weird, malevolent force acting on you, and for some really creepy reason, it’s decided you two should have sex.”

 

“Either that or you’re not the people we’ve known,” Myka added. “Because there’s no way those people were having some weird, age-inappropriate flirtation this whole time!”

 

“Wait, is this because Artie’s old and chunky style?” Claudia demanded. “Because that’s pretty hypocritical, coming from a guy with Pete’s haircut.”

 

Pete raised a finger to defend his hair, but Myka lowered his arm for him. “Okay…”

 

“Maybe you were hit by an Artifact,” Artie reasoned. “It would explain why you’re both acting so strangely.”

 

“Maybe…” Pete said, stroking his chin.

 

Myka hit him in the arm. “No, Pete, we’re normal!”

 

“But, Mykes—what if we’re doing a sort of _The Thing…_ thing, where no one knows who’s been infected and who hasn’t?” He pointed at Artie. “He’s Wilford Brimley! It works out great! Myka, one of us is gonna be Keith David and the other is going to be Kurt Russell!”

 

“I think the bigger issue here is whether or not a man and a woman can ever be good friends or whether there’s always a sexual undercurrent to the relationship, even when there’s a frankly gross age differential.”

 

Pete dropped his hands. “Don’t turn this into When Harry Met Sally. Just don’t.”

 

“Heeeeey Artie,” another Pete said, coming through the door with another Myka trailing behind bearing an Artifact with purple gloves and a foil-wrapped bag. “Sorry we’re late, got some roadhead on the way so I drove in circles for a while… hey, are we doing evil doubles?”

 

***

 

One brief Tesla fight later, Pete and Myka were behind cover on one side of the room, with Other Pete and Other Myka hunkered down with Claudia and Artie, other side of the room.

 

“You’re right,” Pete said to Myka.

 

“I know,” she replied heedlessly.

 

“I mean about my hair. My evil twin has much better hair. It’s like, styled, but not trying too hard. Blown by the epic wind on the cover of a fantasy novel. Shame he doesn’t have a goatee.”

 

Myka fired a quick shot at Claudia as she emerged from cover. She was more disappointed that Claudia still hadn’t put on pants than that she’d missed. “At a time like this, you really think you could pull off a goatee?”

 

“Well, he’s the evil me, right? He should have a goatee. You gotta respect the classics, man.”

 

“You’re right. He’s not rocking a goatee.” Myka craned her neck for a look over their flipped-over desk. “And it’s not like the other me is wearing leather.”

 

Pete nodded. “The evil you would be a dominatrix? That how it is?”

 

“No, she just wouldn’t be vegan.”

 

“Oh, we’re doing the vegan thing again, Twizzler girl?”

 

Myka poked her head up from cover. “Hey, guys? I realize this is a bit awkward, but is it possible none of us are evil doubles?”

 

“Yeah, if I were an evil double, why wouldn’t I have a goatee?” Pete offered.

 

“And if Artie and Claudia are evil doubles, they haven’t done that much that’s evil. Just the… physical act of coitus.”

 

Pete groaned. “That’s the worst one yet.”

 

“It’s just a May-December romance,” Myka argued.

 

“Or like a May… leap year romance…”

 

“Of course!” Artie jumped up from behind the desk. “That’s it!”

 

Pete snapped his fingers. “Leap years! I knew it!”

 

“No!” Artie slapped his Pete upside the head, then apologized. Force of habit. “You’re not any sort of duplications at all, merely residents of a parallel dimension. I presume one where Claudia and I aren’t erotically intimate.”

 

“Other us’s aren’t making faces,” Pete confirmed. “Definitely another dimension.”

 

Somewhat defusing the tense mood, Artie skittered between the two armed camps to gather up files. “This would explain the same duplicates we’ve seen appearing in Oregon over the past few weeks. We assumed they were expressions of the superego, set loose in a confused and unbalanced state, but what if—“ Artie flipped a paper over a few times until he had it right-side-up and facing the right way. “They were instead visitors from this parallel universe—I assume one that doesn’t share our casual attitude towards sex.”

 

“Hey, we’re not some Puritans,” Pete countered.

 

“I’ve had sex three hundred times since I joined the Warehouse,” Other Pete said, facing his counterpart. “You?”

 

Pete paused. “I’m worried that telling you would affect the timeline or something.”

 

“No wonder we couldn’t find any Artifact causing the appearances!” Artie cried. “It wasn’t on our end, it was on yours!”

 

“Hey, we couldn’t find anything either,” Myka corrected.

 

“Either way, before the Artifact’s effects reach their culmination, we have to get in touch with your universe and coordinate some sort of snag. Pete—my Pete—help me find Lady Gaga’s disco stick. It should allow us to communicate beyond dimensional borders.”

 

“Why?” Pete asked.

 

“Do you really think Lady Gaga is from _your_ universe?”


	2. Chapter 2

While _that_ was going on, Pete and Myka were still not trusted with run of the Warehouse, so the other Myka—who went by Ophelia—drove them to the B&B for what amounted to quarantine. The partners wordlessly agreed to go along with it for now, both figuring they’d give the same treatment to any strange doppelgangers they encountered.

 

“I should’ve known from the car ride over,” Pete said in the backseat. “I’ve seen naked lady mud flaps before, but never so gynecological!”

 

“I don’t think we should focus on sex at the moment,” Myka said. “This is a wholly different world from ours, implying that Hawkings’ alternate universe theorem was correct. There could be infinite worlds. And this one—where exactly did our timelines diverge that this world is so similar to our own in some ways, but so drastically different in others. Did they have World War 2? Buster Keaton? J.R.R. Tolkien?”

 

Ophelia smiled into the rear-view mirror. “You’re really cute.”

 

“Oh. Thanks.”

 

Pete leaned over to Myka. “I apologize in advance for finding the two of you hot together.”

 

“Pete, don’t be gross.”

 

“I’m trying. Failing, but trying.”

 

***

 

“I was expecting the Playboy Mansion,” Pete groused as they pulled up to a building that, disappointingly, was as much the picturesque bed and breakfast that it had always been.

 

Ophelia was already sweeping out of the car. “Just because we’re more open about sex doesn’t mean that it’s the only thing we think about. We’re not like those freaks in the musical theater dimension.”

 

“Ha, sounds like a nightmare I had once. Glee was on, but I couldn’t change the channel.”

 

“What’s Glee?”

 

Pete whirled on Myka. “Can I stay here? Please? _Please?_ ”

 

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you wish,” Ophelia said over the more mixed response Myka was formulating. “Just—“

 

“Check with me before you go on any field trips,” Steve said, standing up from the B&B’s porch.

 

Pete gave him a look. “Thought you were at the gooery.”

 

“Yeah. The gooery in the basement of the B&B. Isn’t that where yours is?”

 

“Nope. Hey, since everyone here is into some bisexual hipster free-love stuff, have you and I ever…?”

 

“No.” Steve crossed his arms. “You’re not my type.”

 

“I guess some things never change.”

 

“Although you and Artie—“

 

“And if you’ll excuse me,” Pete said hurriedly, “I am going to go see what the evening news is like in the Pornverse.”

 

“Don’t call it that,” Steve said as Pete rushed by him. “Hey! You can’t name our dimension! Maybe you’re just from the Prudeverse!”

 

Ophelia had been watching this with some amusement, until Myka tapped her shoulder. “Hey, uh… Ophelia…”

 

“You know, talking to yourself is a bad sign, psychologically speaking,” Ophelia quipped.

 

Myka rolled her eyes, glancing at Steve as he went back inside, leaving the two—or one—women out on the lawn. “I probably shouldn’t ask—none of my business—but are you and Pete…”

 

“Seeing each other? Sleeping together? True love?”

 

“All of the above?”

 

“No,” Ophelia said, to Myka’s immense relief. “We’ve had sex a few times—who hasn’t?—but not so much since I met HW.”

 

“HW?” Myka looked to the porch and, like it was fate, Helena was there in the doorway, meeting Myka’s eye—her gaze sliding to Ophelia as warmly and lovingly as a caressing hand.

 

“Well, well—it’s not enough you have a cute sister, _now_ you have a twin…!”

 

“Play nice,” Ophelia cautioned. “She’s from the Prudeverse.” And then, as she and Helena approached each other, the two melted into a warm, unhurried kiss.

 

Myka stood back. It looked so easy.

 

“Now then,” Helena said, still in Ophelia’s arms and looking quite comfortable. “I assume you’ll be needing room and board?”

 

Myka realized she was talking to her. “Oh, yes, yeah.”

 

“Good. You can eat with us. And sleep with us as well.”

 

“On the couch,” Ophelia clarified. “After all, it’s not like you’d want to have sex with one of us.”

 

“Or both of us,” Helena ‘helpfully’ added.

 

Myka swallowed.

 

***

 

She laid flat on her back beneath her lover, who was twisted around so her perfect ass was over the woman’s face, her pussy shining down on her like a setting moon. And the woman couldn’t _get to it,_ she could only stare up at its perfection and moan as her lover’s tongue hurtled into her own wet sex.

 

The licks were only hummingbird-gentle for a moment, then they became more daring, reaming out her pussy with thrusts as hard as a man’s. The only thing that could bring her out of her moaning daze was her lover lowering her body, offering her cunt to the woman. And all three inches of her tongue were instantly inside her lover, feeling the tender clutch of sugary walls all around her tongue.

 

Like a lulling song, the room became quiet except for the occasional slap of flesh on flesh as the two women adjusted their grips on each other, the delicately wet noise of each licking away at the other and hoping they found her body equally as delicious.

 

Pete didn’t look at this for long before shattering the silence. “Leena! Oh my God, you’re alive! And eating out Abigail Cho!”

 

Leena raised her head from the juncture of Abigail’s thighs. “Hey Pete. Abby and I were just getting in a little therapeutic relief. Nothing better for stress than some sixty-nine.”

 

Abigail scooted over on the living room couch until she could see Pete past Leena’s legs. “We’ll let you join in if you tell us what’s with your hair.”

 

“My hair is—it’s considered a very trendy haircut where I’m from. Ladies love this hair. I have to wear a hat or they’ll mob me.” Pete suddenly realized he should probably turn his back; it was what Chuck Norris would do. But when they were so casually yinning each other’s yangs, it seemed rude not to drink it in. He sat down in an arm chair, propping his face up with his hand so it blocked his view a little.

 

“Oh, right, you’re the other Pete from the other dimension,” Abigail said. “Artie sent us a fax about it.”

 

“Faxes? Man, you guys are different. And gay. And naked.”

 

“So do you not want a threesome?” Leena asked. “Because we hear that you’re some wacky virgin Pete, and we’d love to pop that cherry—“

 

“Hey! I am not a virgin! I just wasn’t born on Temptation Island like your Pete and his salon-quality hair! And I would love having my cherry, uh, repopped, but Leena, where I come from, you’re dead.”

 

Leena pressed a small kiss to Abigail’s thigh. “Oh, is it some gritty post-apocalyptic future where everyone’s been killed by robots?”

 

“That’d be awesome, but no. Artie got possessed by an Artifact and killed you.”

 

“Oh. So—Steve, Claudia, Artie, they’re all okay?”

 

“Yeah. I mean, Steve died for a while, but he got better.”

 

“Huh.” Leena shrugged. “Anyway, you wanna watch me eat Abigail out some more? I think I can get her to squirt.”

 

“Nah, that’s okay. It’d just be too weird for me. Like having sex with a ghost. Or watching ghost pornography.”

 

“Neither of which you’d do?”

 

“…no. Of course not. I’m just gonna—be in my room.”

 

Walking upstairs, he opened the vacant room Steve had assigned him to find a naked Claudia on his bed. Seeing him enter, she gave him two finger-guns. “So, don’t tell anyone, but that hair is kinda doing it for me.”

 

“Out!”

 

Grumbling, Claudia threw herself to her feet. “Artie taught me how to deep-throat, but I guess you’re not interested in that, huh?”

 

“You’re like my kid sister!”

 

“Is your kid sister hot?”

 

***

 

The Bering & Wells apartment was two rooms with the wall between them knocked out, forming very nearly enough space to contain the stacks of books that lined the walls and piled up on the ground. There was no TV, though there were some posters of classic HG Wells films—donated from Pete, no doubt. And what furnishings it did have… it was spartan enough to remind Myka of her college dorm room… were vintage HG. Louis XIII furniture beside the folding chairs Myka kept for guests in her own universe. The best of both worlds, almost.

 

Ophelia put on a disc of Andalusian classical music. Helena served dinner: Lao cuisine, a selection of dips with a rice basket and several appetizers. She recommended the _som khai pa_ to Myka, who tried it. It was good. It was all good, everything so cosmopolitan and hip and comfortable and intimate. She had no idea it could be so normal with them. Normal and still so extraordinary.

 

“Can I ask you something personal?” she said, almost stuttering.

 

“If you can’t ask yourself a question,” Helena began, trailing off. Ophelia daubed some _Jaew Bong_ from her chin with a napkin.

 

Myka tried not to smile too much. They weren’t puppies, after all. “What… _happened_ when HG was unbronzed? Did she…?”

 

“Did I try to destroy the world?” Helena asked.

 

“Yeah. That.”

 

“No, I’m thankful to say.”

 

“Very thankful to say,” Ophelia added, eyebrow raised.

 

“Why? Because in my world—“

 

“I’m assuming it didn’t blow up either.”

 

“No, but HG—Helena almost went through with it. She was imprisoned, then she got out, then she retired… it’s like the universe was conspiring to keep us apart, and then I come here, and you two are magnets. You just come together.”

 

“Generally, she comes first,” Helena corrected impishly.

 

Myka choked on a laugh. “But is that it? Did the two of you—is that what stopped it?”

 

“I’m not that good,” Ophelia insisted.

 

“She is,” Helena said. “But Myka, please understand. There was nothing Ophelia did or didn’t do that changed my course. I felt despair as acutely as I imagine my sister in your world did. But I fought for my happiness, and Ophelia was there to fight with me. As for the rest—who can say? A butterfly flapped its wings in your world that stayed still in mine. God chose to grant me fortune. All I can say is that Ophelia was worth fighting for.”

 

Myka fell silent. The music dominated as she picked at her food. The only thing that kept her from slapping herself was the warmth between Ophelia and Helena. It was hard not to believe that could’ve had that; and yet here she was, not even sure if she wanted it. Because even in this world, what if they burned? What if an Artifact killed Ophelia the next day and all Helena’s fighting and victories were only to let her love turn cold?

 

“Do you ever wonder if you’re worth fighting for?” she asked Ophelia, who just looked at her. Something so _close_ about the look. Pity, but not the kind that condescended. The kind that invited her in with sympathy and love.

 

“Helena is the most brilliant woman I’ve ever met. If she fights for me, I’m worth it.”

 

They linked hands. “And Ophelia is simply the most splendid person I know. She wouldn’t have me if I weren’t worth having.” Helena stole a quick kiss at their joined hands. “Enough of this music—it’s too foreign, making us melancholic.” She stood. “I think something contemporary.”

 

Ophelia quickly cleared her plate, Myka doing the same, as Helena went to the record collection. With her usual quick-thinking, Helena had a disc picked out and in the player before Ophelia could finish chewing. Then the rich groove of James Brown’s cover of Night Train slid from the stereos.

 

“Very contemporary,” Myka laughed.

 

“Yes, I hate how a skillfully played melody is actually detectable,” Helena groused, her distaste for modern music evident no matter what universe she was in. “Come, Myka. I want to see if you’re as good a dancer as your doppelganger.”

 

***

 

Pete was trying hard not to think about Leena and Abigail going to town while upside-down, but at the same time, he was trying not to forget it. Maybe there was still time to get in on that. How long did lesbians have sex for? If only he’d stuck with The Real L Word after he’d seen the title sequence and realized it was called The Real L Word!

 

Leena would want him to be happy, right? What could make him happier than a threesome where he had the only penis? World peace? A decent Superman movie? Bomber jackets making a comeback?

 

But she was _dead!_ This was the kinda thing that should be in living wills. ‘Hey, if I meet your clone or a robot of you or you in an alternate universe, and they’re DTF, can we F? Would you mind?” Because Pete would be totally cool with some grizzled half-cyborg him from the year 2040 having sex with Steve if that was how the cookie crumbled in days of future past.

 

There was a knock at the door, just before Pete could remember just how Leena had squeezed Abigail’s petite ass. “It’s open! As long as you’re wearing clothes!”

 

Amanda pushed the door open, making way for her to lean against the doorframe. Her BDUs fit her as well as ever: olive shirt and camouflage shorts, mixed up for civilian wear. She held a bowl of pot-roasted pork, still so hot she needed two oven mitts to hold it. “Getting a warm welcome, I see.”

 

“Amanda?” Pete took a step closer to get a good look, make sure it wasn’t another amazingly beautiful blonde he’d at one point fallen in love with before losing her to being a drink-addled garbage bag. “What are you doing here?”

 

She held up the bowl. “Thought you might be hungry; brought your favorite. I’m guessing you wouldn’t be comfortable with what Leena and Abigail are doing on the kitchen table; there’s a reason I didn’t bring you any pudding.”

 

“Really, still?”

 

“Tantric sex. They have that in your dimension?”

 

“No, we have Viagra.” Resolving to move, Pete took the pork off her hands and looked around for someplace to set it down. “Thanks for this, by the way, but— _what_ are you doing here? Like, in North Dakota? And please don’t say it’s to have sex with me.”

 

“Oh, far from it—we’re married.”

  
“What? You and Other Pete? Pete Prime? P2?”

 

“Yes. Of course.” Amanda kept talking as Pete thought to put the bowl down on the nightstand. It distracted him from just how tight olive drab could be. “Why? Aren’t you with your Amanda? I can’t picture myself with anyone but my Pete.”

 

“Uh, didn’t work out. Drinking problem. But I’m better now. Got the Warehouse job, great friends, dated a vet for a while—there’s a dog, a ferret… a Prius…”

 

“You’re divorced?”

 

Pete quickly stuffed a slice of pork in his mouth. Man, he’d forgotten how good Leena’s cooking was. And it bought him some time, even if Amanda didn’t take the hint and change the subject. After chewing over the meat longer than a George R.R. Martin book, Pete swallowed. “Yeah. Divorced. Going on ten years now.”

 

“Ten years?” Amanda’s eyebrow shot up like he’d lit a fuse on it. “So… it’s been ten years since you’ve seen these?”

 

And she took her shirt off.

 

No matter the universe, Amanda had great taste in bras.

 

“Well, I mean, I have a great memory, so… your nipples are like the dialogue in Jurassic Park, I can pretty much quote all of it from beginning to end.”

 

“Mmm. And my ass?” She turned around. _Lord,_ did she turn around.

 

“Yeah, yeah, also that—may I just say, your breasts just now and your breasts ten years ago—I can’t see the difference. Very… very good aging. Have you aged? You weren’t bronzed or anything, were you? Because this universe has gotta have one evil double…”

 

“Pete,” Amanda said, as calmly and sweetly as she had when they’d been married.

 

“Yeah hon?” he replied. Old habits.

 

“First I’m going to cut your hair.”

 

“That’s fair.”

 

“Then I’m going to do my wifely duties. Oral. Vaginal.”

 

“…boobular?” Pete suggested. Then his head shook like a dog trying to dry off. “Wait, wait—you do know I’m not your husband, right? I’m a strange, strange man—virtually a stranger—I could be the guy that canceled Firefly. You don’t know!”

 

“Honestly, that sums up the appeal.” Amanda bent to take off her shorts. She had _not_ forgotten how to bend over. “I love fucking my dear, darling husband. And I love having wild, illicit sex with strange men. Now I get to do both.”

 

She reached for the clasp of her bra and Pete’s willpower could not’ve hit a stronger wall if there was a fresh plate of cookies cooling off on the kitchen counter and Trailer on hand to take the blame.

 

Then she stopped. “Wait, Firefly’s canceled? But then how are they going to explain Doctor Who getting back to his own show?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this is less comprehensible than usual, I have caught myself a very bad cold.

Myka had never danced with two people before. It was surprisingly easy. They both had a hand on her hip and a hand on her shoulder, so she just had to sway between them and they moved her with their own innate concerto. The music kept going past their dance, seguing into something softer and more caring. She was being moved by them and she connected them; it was a very safe feeling.

 

“You haven’t asked what you want to ask,” Ophelia said, facing her.

 

“I don’t know if I have the right to ask it.”

 

“Ask what’ll make you happy,” Helena suggested from behind her. “Everyone has a right to be happy.

 

Myka swallowed, focusing on the music, not the almost subliminal intensity of the feelings on either side of her. They loved each other so much. How did they let all that love out into the open and not have it explode?

 

“How do you love her?” she asked Ophelia.

 

Ophelia leaned in like she was sharing a secret. “You stop trying to fix her. And you realize you don’t need to.”

 

She could feel Helena’s breath hitting her neck from behind. “I like your curly hair. Ophelia and I look so matchy-matchy, both of ours straight. I should wear my hair in curls.”

 

Myka shook her head. “You don’t know my Helena. She was in so much pain… it burned its way out of her.”

 

Ophelia smiled—it didn’t look at all as strained as Myka’s so often felt—and she moved in even closer to kiss Myka’s forehead. The music was even more soothing now, the low steady hum of blood flowing sweetly through her veins. “Don’t psychoanalyze. Don’t protect. Don’t fix. Don’t diagnose. Don’t redeem. Just be there. All around her. Fill her up with love. She doesn’t need stitches or surgery. Just a bandage to hold her together. She heals all on her own.”

 

“I don’t know if I can be someone’s bandage,” Myka replied. She felt suspended between them, a tightrope walker perfectly balanced. “I keep feeling my cracks.”

 

“And you had Pete and Artie and Claudia to fill in those cracks, long before you ever met Helena. You’re not Helena’s lifeline, honey. You’re just part of the net. Know that you can hold her. Know it.”

 

Helena’s voice almost startled Myka, but it seemed to well up so deep inside her, it was almost expected when Myka finally heard it. “We’re so alike. We both think too much. Somehow it takes another thinker to teach us we can’t think our way out of everything. Can’t debate ourselves into being happy. Just feel her love and know she can feel yours just as strongly.”

 

And their hands tightened on her, their bodies pressed in like a closing oyster, and Myka was almost part of the kiss they shared over her left shoulder. She moaned, feeling Ophelia and Helena’s hands as they moved to each other’s bodies, their warmth as they touched her flesh like matches to firewood.

 

Then they stopped, Ophelia just standing before Myka like a mirror image. All the reflection lacked was the presence Myka felt behind her. Helena, whispering in her ear.

 

“We need to come, Myka. And if you’re anything like us, you do too. How would you like it? With her? With me? Watching us?”

 

“All together,” Myka breathed, her conscious mind unable to believe what she was asking for. But it felt right. “At once. Ménage à trois.”

 

That was the right answer. Like a landmine had gone off nearby, Myka found herself crashing down onto the bed. Ophelia and Helena were next to her, and Myka no longer being between them had an effect similar to a river with its dam removed. Their clothes flew away as a tree lost its leaves in the winter. Hands scoured each other’s bodies, lips merged and melded, their bodies fit together like key and lock. It was like seeing two perfectly designed inventions, each created for the sole purpose of bringing the other pleasure. A perfect circle. Or a time loop.

 

Helena barely managed to pull her mouth free long enough to say “Join in whenever you like, dear,” before Ophelia was kissing her again.

 

Myka belatedly started to undress as the two gloriously nude women… what were they doing? It’d been so long since Myka’s last female lover—college—that she couldn’t even name—

 

Scissoring. They were definitely scissoring.

 

***

 

Amanda was just as strong-willed as Pete remembered. She didn’t even wait for him to undress before throwing him down on the bed, crawling over him, tossing her head to throw her hair to one side like something out of an old movie—it was a full-court press. She stopped with her face just above his, and her dazzling smile was the only thing that could draw his eyes from the hard nipples being driven into his chest like railroad spikes.

 

Then she was kissing him, and nothing could distract him for that.

 

Except, maybe ten minutes or an hour later, the door opening.

 

“Hey,” Tracey said, drawing out the E in a warm greeting.

 

Amanda, who by now wore possibly less clothes than she’d been born in, looked over at Tracey with an equally warm smile. “Hey, Trace.” She rubbed Pete’s chest, making up for the absence of her lips.

 

“I just got in,” Tracey explained. “Wanted the baby to get some Aunt Ophelia time, but she’s busy, so I left him with Leena. That woman is so good with kids—from putting up with all of you, I think. Hey, what’s with Pete’s hair?”

 

“New Pete. From another universe? I had to buzz-cut him, it was the only way to be sure. It’s _weird_ , he gets hard so fast…”

 

“Well…” Pete tried to play it off suavely, “it’s not every day a beautiful woman wraps me up like a birthday present.”

 

That seemed to concern Amanda. “Then… every two days? Three days? Do you even get fed in your universe?”

 

“Yeah! A lot! But dating someone isn’t as easy as ordering a pizza—“

 

Tracey sat down on the bed with them. “They don’t let you put sex workers on your credit card? That must be inconvenient.”

 

“Yeah—such a bummer—but, you know, it makes the times that you do get lucky that much more special…”

 

“You have to be _lucky_ to have sex in your universe?”

 

Pete sighed. “Tracey, do you think we could pick this up later? Me and Amanda were sorta—I mean, she wasn’t getting naked for her tan.”

 

“Oh, of course.” Tracey stood and began to undress. “At least they don’t have a lot of conversation before sex in your dimension. That’d be the worst.”

 

“Wait, I’m not sure I’m comfortable—you’re Myka’s sister and she’s—oh, forget it.”

 

***

 

Myka could barely take her eyes away long enough to unzip and unbutton her clothes. She was about as efficient at undoing her bra as Steve would be. But finally, around the time Ophelia and Helena were done with their second simultaneous orgasm, she pushed them to either side and laid between them, smuggling her own naked body into their warm little battleground.

 

Just like that, their new goal in life was to get her off. Myka had no argument. She accepted Helena’s kisses and Ophelia’s caresses and she masturbated herself as good as she’d ever given herself. But it wasn’t until Ophelia added a finger that she peaked, hard and fast, with the most delicious moan she could ever remember coming out of her own mouth. Of course. Ophelia _would_ know where to touch her.

 

Then it was her double’s turn, rolling on top of Myka so both she and Helena could have their way with her. She came almost immediately, tribbing with Myka as Helena zipped down to lick and kiss her sex as best she could.

 

Then it was Helena’s time, and the Berings turned on her as one. Helena eagerly opened her labia to both their seeking hands, which slid over each other wet with juice and saliva until each had found a spot that sent Helena into paroxysm of ecstasy. Under the dual assault, Helena howled with utterly undignified joy.

 

Myka barely had time to celebrate. Ophelia was kissing her then. Myka had always privately thought that for someone else, kissing her must be a chore, somehow unsatisfying, and she always tried desperately to impress her lovers enough to keep her. But Ophelia’s kiss was slow and sultry and just perfect, her lips soft and wet, and Myka couldn’t imagine anyone not feeling what she felt.

 

But Helena hadn’t at all been tamed by domestic bliss. As ravenous as ever, she switched places with Ophelia as she pushed Myka down her pale belly, almost to the cusp of her curling hair. Myka saw a landscape of old scars, subtle muscle—stretch marks. Little things that added up to perfection.

 

She looked up to see Ophelia embracing Helena from behind, already sharing a kiss. It seemed the two could never kiss each other another. Ophelia’s fingers slid down between Helena’s breasts, slowly, a little trance that broke when she polished a spot just below Helena’s navel.

 

“Here,” Ophelia said, barely able to pull herself away from Helena’s kiss. The Englishwoman snapped her teeth at Ophelia’s mouth, trying to capture it again; she was playfully dissuaded. “Helena _loves_ being kissed there. It’s her most sensitive spot…”

 

Myka moved to kiss it, paused, instead darted her tongue over it in a little snitch. Above her, Helena bit her lip and Ophelia took her kiss again. Myka bent to do the same, sucking at the spot like she’d leave a hickey on it, smelling Helena’s pussy as it went wet and needing.

 

They were both looking at her now, a couple’s identical eyes, dark and gleaming with the sight of Myka. Myka obeyed their unspoken need. She kissed on either side of Helena’s belly button, she licked the spot, she moved down the exquisite grace of Helena’s pubis until she felt dark curls brushing her chin. Then her lips. Then her tongue.

 

“ _Yessss,_ ” Helena hissed, as content as a snake in the sun.

 

Ophelia had her hands on Helena’s breasts, a leg over her leg: she was riding her as she would a horse at full gallop. “The bottom of her cunt. Hit the bottom of her cunt every time you lick her. You’ll drive her _crazy._ ”

 

For possibly the first time in her relationship with HG, Myka listened to _herself_ and flicked her tongue in Helena from bottom to top, finding exactly the spot Ophelia had indicated. Helena’s eyes rolled back into her head when Myka got there; they stayed white as Myka lapped with the flat of her tongue. She could _taste_ Helena’s pleasure.

 

Ophelia was heatedly kissing Helena’s face, leaving her mouth free to moan and gasp with all of Myka’s attention. “Put your whole tongue in. Let her feel you inside her while you finger her clit. She fucking loves it!”

 

Myka mated her mouth to Helena’s sex, her tongue reaching deep into Helena to feel her throb and pulse on every taste bud. Helena’s straining clit swam in her vision and she brushed it with her finger, rubbing gently but insistently. Helena’s entire body shook with each little touch like her clit was a tiny voodoo doll.

 

“Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” Helena begged, all her pride and dignity abandoned to be with Myka. She forced her eyes to focus on Ophelia, wound her arms around the woman to hold her close. “I’ve always wanted you to see how hard you make me come…”

 

“Show me.”

 

And Myka wanted, more than anything, to make Helena come; to be part of the love they shared. She hugged Helena’s legs to her body and kissed her cunt with shameless exuberance, a teenager’s lust, until Helena was thrashing from side to side, her strong thighs squeezing Myka’s face to her climax, Ophelia’s hands doing the same. Myka was smothered in the wet fire between Helena’s legs.

 

“I love you,” Ophelia chanted as she held Helena to her with a diamond-hard grip, “love you.”

 

“I love you too,” Helena sobbed, as soon as her orgasm had crashed down on her and she was left floating in the afterglow. “Every possible you in every possible world. Every multitude of you. All your shapes and sizes. Each tiny facet.”

 

And together, they pulled Myka up to join their cloistered bodies, open mouths pressing together in a triangle of a kiss. Myka moaned, two tongues slipping over and around hers to taste every remnant of Helena’s pleasure.

 

“And that,” Ophelia said smugly, “is how you get off a brilliant English inventor from the turn of the century.”

 

Helena recovered herself. “But how,” she asked, in her rhetorical tone, “is a brilliant Secret Service agent from the _other_ turn of the century ‘gotten off’?”

 

She smiled at Ophelia. Ophelia smiled back. Then they both smiled at Myka.

 

By the end of the night, Myka knew a great deal about what Helena enjoyed, and even more about what she herself liked.

 

And chief among those things was Helena Godiva Wells.

 

***

 

Pete soon realized that there was more to the logistics of a threesome than finding two women who were well and truly bisexuals, not just big Angelina Jolie fans. It all looked so simple in the pornos, but (this was obvious in retrospect) those were choreographed. Like Jackie Chan fights. Put Jackie Chan in a bar brawl, he wouldn’t beat up ten guys with a mop and a bra, he’d just get his ass kicked.

 

Put Pete Lattimer with two women, what was he supposed to do, grow a second penis? Sprout a prehensile tail like Nightcrawler? Or actually perform cunnilingus when another woman was riding him like Seabiscuit? You’d think three people would reduce the onus on everyone involved, but no, apparently he was responsible for pleasuring both women, and one with his mouth in a situation where even motorboating was a little much to ask at the moment. It was like walking and chewing gum at the same time; he had no idea how Myka was so good at it.

 

He heard the door squeak open and thought _Not again._ “Please understand,” he said, trying to get out of the headlock Tracey’s thighs had on him, “if I missed anyone, it’s been a big day, I’m a little tired.”

 

“Don’t worry, kiddo. I’ll take one of ‘em off your hands.”

 

Tracey looked up from trying to maneuver her clit back into Pete’s mouth. “Oh. Hello, Mrs. Lattimer.”

 

***

 

Steve opened his door to find the alternate Pete outside, wearing apparently little besides a pilfered bedsheet. “I need to spend the night with you.”

 

“Pete, this is a bit sudden—“

 

“Let me crash on your couch or something, man. I just—really need no one to try to have sex with me, or in the same room as me, or while being related to me…”

 

“I was actually just about to watch a documentary on Siddhartha. I’ve been looking forward to it for a while, Ben Kingsley is narrating. I’ll watch him in anything.”

 

“Perfect! I’m in! You have any microwave popcorn?”

 

“Pete, you do know Siddhartha was the founder of Buddhism, right? He didn’t lead the Spartans or invent samurais or anything. He really just meditated. Gave to charity. Taught people about the Four Noble Truths.”

 

“Stop right there, man, don’t spoil it for me, I am sold. Dude! Four Noble Truths! Can’t wait!”

 

***

 

By morning, it was all sorted out. The Artifact was bifurcated, existing in both dimensions simultaneously. They had to simultaneously neutralize the Penthouse, along with the other universe’s anniversary issue of Faithful Monogamy Illustrated, to truly have it SBTed.

 

“But why do you suppose the other victims went back to your universe as bonkers as you said they were?” Claudia wondered, thankfully wearing far more pants than Pete had recalled.

 

Myka had thought it over. Pillow talk with Ophelia and Helena. “As far as we can tell, the Artifact or Artifacts were created by intense, onanistic longing for a fantasy lifestyle. All that longing was layered on top of each other by dimensional proximity, and due to the specific nature of the fantasy, a conduit was formed between worlds. And, because it was created by emotion, it amplified that same emotion. So when people were sucked back to their own dimension—“

 

“Due to their universal resonance,” Helena added, looking pleased with herself. She’d written the equation on Ophelia’s back in ballpoint pen.

 

“They were so consumed with grief over what they’d lost that it overwhelmed their consciousness. But a little treatment with the Janus Coin should have them convinced that all that happened was a bad mushroom trip.”

 

“Grief over what they’d lost,” Pete repeated. “Well, no chance of that with me. I mean, good on you for being all sexually open and stuff, but is it really worth it if you end up in a society where there’s nothing weird about watching a sex scene with your parents?”

 

“Or in a sex scene with your parents?” Ophelia asked mischievously, pleased as punch to have a new Pete to tease.

 

“It was just going to be a double-team, okay? My mom didn’t actually want to do me. Please tell me she didn’t want to do me. Let me keep thinking of the Oedipus Complex as something weird and funny, like it was in Back To The Future.”

 

Helena rolled her eyes. “Honestly, look at us! We’re very attractive! Do you really think any of us are the product of incest?”

 

Pete shrugged. “Maybe some cousin-on-cousin stuff? Ophelia has a bit of a neck on her.”

 

***

 

And with both Artifacts neutralized, they just had to wait for—as Myka explained to Pete—the thing to do the thing with the thing, which would put them back where they belonged.

 

“So,” Pete said to her, “you’re not gonna pull out your hair over leaving the Playboy Universe?”

 

“Nah. I’ve got something waiting for me back home. And I like the thought that it’s all mine.”

 

“Right, your Kindle. Well, I will be content to simply take back with me the simplest and greatest of gifts.”

 

“Memories?”

 

“No, I stole other me’s Firefly boxset. Six seasons and a movie.”

 

Myka shook her head. “I hope you realize that no TV show is good past the fourth season or so.”

 

***

 

Helena’s apartment was nice. At least, Myka assumed it was. She didn’t pay much attention to any of it except for the lock, which she picked. Then she strutted inside to find Helena having dinner with Giselle, the food looking nice, their clothes looking nice, all things Myka would love to pay attention to if she hadn’t driven all night to see Helena. Her Helena.

 

“Hi, HG. You must be Giselle. Sorry to interrupt. I’ll just be a minute.”

 

Breathing hard, Myka took off her jacket. “I realize this is very abrupt, but you’ve always been about leaping before you look, so for once let’s do this your way, huh?”

 

Myka kicked off her shoes. “The fact is, for however much I never figured out quite how to be happy without you, I never really thought we could be stable. But lately I’ve been able to step outside myself and you are the most stable thing that could be in my life. You’re bedrock. You’re bone.”

 

Myka began unbuttoning her blouse. “And it’s incredibly unfair of me to ask for you to just drop Giselle when she has to be one amazing woman to be worth a minute of your time, so I won’t ask that.”

 

Myka shrugged off her undone blouse. Started on her bra. “Because I do know you, and I know what you like. And unless Giselle is another Nate, then she’s probably going to be one hell of a kinky, open-minded gal. So.”

 

Myka wiggled out of her trousers and panties at the same time. “To prove that I am absolutely dead serious about this, you can both have sex with me. Right now. And where we go from there, I really don’t know. But I so, so want to find out.”

 

There was a shared speechlessness that Myka took as slightly complimentary and slightly terrifying, considering she was naked. Then:

 

“Giselle,” Helena said, “this is Myka.”

 

“Oh, yes, of course, I’ve heard so much about you.”

 

“Likewise,” Myka said.

 

Helena gave Giselle a look. Myka recognized that look.

 

Giselle gave Helena a look. Myka would’ve loved to get to know that look.

 

Then they both wheeled on her.

 

In a split-second, the carpet was a puzzle of slim legs and strong arms, slender hips, soft bellies, all twisting, all turning, all squirming over and onto each other. Every secret place was sought out with wet fingers and wetter kisses. No one knew or cared whose breasts, bellies, or thighs were being touched. Each body part offered up by the meandering orgy seemed more delicious than the next. But there was no attempt at diversity. Roving, curious fingers repeatedly visited the same enticing spots, on their own bodies as well as others’, until every possible pleasure had been milked from each body, pumped into each other, and finally grew numb.

 

Then they laid together, Myka very pleased to have Helena on one side of her and Giselle on the other, both resting their heads on her chest. She kissed Helena on the head and took a discerning look at Giselle.

 

“Has anyone ever told you you look a lot like Xena?” she asked.


End file.
